


Mercy

by Crims



Category: Crimson Peak (2015), Lucille Sharpe - Fandom, Thomas Sharpe - Fandom
Genre: Asylum, Crimson Peak, Crimson peak fanfic, F/F, F/M, Fanfiction, Medical Procedures, Victorian, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian era, Victorian life, asylum treatment, crimson peak fanfiction, f/f - Freeform, f/m - Freeform, female relationship, medical practise, non-con, victorian asylum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:11:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crims/pseuds/Crims
Summary: Melinda Rose Barker, institutionalised for the murder of her father meets a girl that will both steal her heart and change her life forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave any feedback that you may have and check out the other Crimson Peak fic that my friend and I are writing together.

“Melinda Rose Barker. You are hereby committed to the Cumberland and Westmorland asylum until further notice or until by the mercy of God, you are cured of your lunatic tendencies”  
I often wondered what he meant, by the mercy of God. Mercy. What mercy had I been granted? A sickly child to a mother who already had eight mouths to feed, that was if one of them didn’t die during the night from cotton lung from the factory or something they’d picked up from the mud in the streets. Then there was my father, a brute with a belt and a favour of punishing us with said belt, yet who claimed to be an avid follower of the same God that was meant to grant me mercy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall...that I had once had a sister we called Mercy. Mother said she had given her that name because it was a “mercy” that she had survived one of the fever outbreaks that seemed to visit every house on the street. It was a mercy that she’d survived at all, well, for a time before she was crushed to death in the factory under one of the heavy weaving looms. That’s how it worked you see, if we reached past the age of five then instead of being nameless mother would grant us a name. Of course she would have to make sure the priest knew our names so if we followed Mercy and my other siblings, then we could be buried in the church yard. In the end out of the ten children my mother managed to birth before her death, three survived past the age of fifteen.

My mother was born in Carlisle on January 5th 1836, that’s where we were all born, her name was Saria Hemley. She met my father at the factory they both worked at and was married by the age of eighteen. He was seven years older than she was, he seemed “pleasant” is how my mother had described him when they first met. Not longer after she gave birth to the first of my siblings. Mother used to say that it was a little boy, but he only lived one short year. A year later George was born, Mercy followed two years after and then Luke in 1859. Mother often said that it was between Mercy’s death and my birth that father became a brute; turning to gin as a way of coping when he realised that his “amorous congress” with my mother was leading to more mouths to feed. He worked at the local factory as a labourer and my mother worked inside the factory, working one of the looms and sorting through the cotton. They had little money, sometimes even less food and when Mercy died it seemed to make matters worse. Father would return home from his “meetings” smelling of the working girls and doused in gin, mother would plead for him to stay quiet for the children’s sake but he would have none of it. In the morning mother would greet my siblings with another bruise on her face and they weren’t left out. I reasoned, when I was younger that perhaps that was the reason for the gap between Luke and myself and the others that followed after me. Jacob who I always felt I was closest too, Eliza who died a little before her first birthday, Felicity who was taken away by an Aunt to be schooled. Then came little Hattie Grace who was born sick from the womb and died at six months and then the fateful day that mother, pregnant once more at the age of forty one, bled out. Her body weary, worn and tired from all the years of labouring and caring, defending her children and being beaten and abused by my father. I found her on the floor, crying as blood pooled round her and stained her skirts.  
“Get the neighbour love, go on, I just need a little help” she’d smiled at me, but even at such an age I knew that she was somehow lying to me. Father returned that night and sat on the outside step in the street with nothing but his gin for company. George and Luke had been sent away by then, sent to live with some relatives in the country so it was down to me to care for the rest of the children and mother. She laid in bed all that night, her body shaking as I sat in the chair and made sure she was warm and covered, the candle burning all night.  
“When you’re old enough, run, run and don’t come back. Promise me, promise you’ll run”  
I promised her, my innocent state confused as to what she could possibly mean, why she was asking such a thing of me. Yet come the morning I realised why.  
She was dead.  
Her eyes glassy and mouth hanging open, I sat staring at her for so long small spots appeared in my vision. Father burst through the door, reeking of cheap perfume and stale gin and smoke as he gazed down at the woman he had had a hand in killing. Yet at her funeral, he stood weeping like some mourning widow that his wife had been cruelly taken from him too soon, a caring mother had left her babes. Yet as he gave his hollow speech his mistress lingered, her hair curled and pulled back, lips stained red and her ghastly brown teeth contrasting with the flakiness of her skin. Within a month she and father were married.  
“Look at the worm, what is he”  
“Not my son”  
Such rage boiled in my veins as she sat on my father’s lap and in front of myself and the other children, engaged in such physical acts that at the time confused and meant little to us. My concern was caring for the children left behind, ensuring that they were warm at night, that they had at least a bite of bread in the morning before I left for the factory. On the odd day that I was allowed to leave early, I would stand with small bunches of wild flowers and sell them, keeping the money hidden from my father who would take what little we were given for his and his new wife’s benefit and spending. His abuse and beatings only increased with the encouragement of his new wife who was not shy to share the punishing. Often she would wonder the house with a thin cane that would clip the back of your hand or across the backs of your legs. Many a time did I return from working and find Jacob stood rubbing his face and trying to catch his breath from the sobs, his legs red with welts where her cane had struck him. By this point Hattie Grace had still been alive, though not for much longer. The milk and bread solution did little to fill her stomach and illness soon fell upon her. Cradling her in my arms and shoal she died and it was left to me to take her to the priest and hand her over for burial. He was a kindly man, taking me and Jacob in for a meal and warming us by the fire. In the morning we buried Hattie Grace with my mother and other siblings, just the three of us before I returned to Jacob to the house. They hadn’t noticed that we’d been gone. Drunken and naked, still led in bed despite the bells chiming to signal that it was time to be at work they continued to lie there.  
Looking back now, older than my tender ten years that I had been, I suppose it could be argued there was a moment of madness. Yet there is not regret. The anger of the few years that I had been alive resurfaced. The memories of watching my mother bleed, hearing her cries and pleas for my father to stop beating her, hearing and seeing my brothers and sisters cower, crying as he beat them, finding Jacob in the corner crying and covered in marks from his new wife, the names that they called me, the loss of my mother and the fact that no one seemed to care that she was gone, that my sisters and brothers had died. That he was alive. When all these thoughts passed and I gazed down at my hand that was holding the blood soaked truncheon bat that my father kept beside his bed, it was then that I acknowledged that I too was spattered with blood and skull fragments. My small and weak arm had found enough strength in my anger to swing and deliver the blows that rendered my father the unrecognisable fragments on his pillow. But I did not run, merely stood and continued to stare at the blood that stained the sheets and his now stirring wife and realised that despite my thoughts that he must surely be a demon, his blood was the same colour and consistency that my mother’s had been. Even now I find it a struggle to accept that this was the case.  
“What have you done!? You little bitch-“  
Her screams were shrill, shrieking even as she saw the scene before her and the truncheon that sat in my hand. From that moment events passed in a blur. The constable found me sat on the outside step, my arm around Jacob, still spattered in my father’s blood. I allowed myself to be walked to the station and placed into a cell. I did not cry, I did not weep or plead. My only concern was that Jacob was all right and cared for. Then the fateful statement;  
“Melinda Rose Barker. You are hereby committed to the Cumberland and Westmorland asylum until further notice or until by the mercy of God, you are cured of your lunatic tendencies”  
The journey from Carlisle to the asylum was cold, bitterly so and bumpy as the cart was driven along the uneven tracks along the moorlands. The wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden seating, the inside cold and uncomfortable. I wasn’t alone, there were women sat in there with me, one sat in the corner with her face pressed into the corner and the whole journey she giggled and whispered. Another who sat beside me seemed too beautiful to be with the rest of us, her smile was sweet and gentle and her fingers brushed through my hair. I later found out that she was admitted for having hysterical outbreaks; she’d stabbed her nurse maid with a pair of quilting sheers. The other’s who joined me, merely sat there in silence until the carriage stopped and we were all led out. The building was red brick, a large green lawn sat beside the stony drive way and a woodland not far beyond where the continued track went.  
“This way”  
We were led into one of the buildings, inside was dark and there was a distinct smell that even to this day I have never been able to match anywhere. There were “residents” wondering round, some carrying large baskets of laundry, others simply stood in the middle of the room. They were older women, the calmer and well behaved as I would come to know. The calmness of the outside was soon replaced with the screams and wails of others. Tiled hallways with dark wood, doors either side and on the odd occasion nurses that would pass and quickly enter the cell where the source of the screams were echoing from.  
“This will be your home now” the orderly took glee in informing me of such a fact, the obvious glee on his face as he pushed me inside the cell, my arms filled with the required uniform. An itchy dress, matching apron each of which would be washed, scrubbed clean on wash day along with the violating scrub that I received before being seated with a chalk board and a contraption that I had never witnessed before. I later learned that it had captured my likeness, a black and white image that was placed into a report. From there I was ushered to a large room where each of us were seated, a metal bowl placed in front of us and a portion of porridge and bread served along with barely warm tea before everyone was ushered back to their cells and the doors were shut. I still remember that first night, the echoing screeches, the laughter and continued screams in the dark. Yet as I led staring into the darkness, I found that I had little fear in me. It irritated me and the same anger that I had felt when I had stood beside my father and delivered his skull crushing blows, rose in my chest until I felt my hand balled into fists in the itchy woollen blanket. The following morning, being woken with little to no sleep, we were led to the main hall where once again our rations were delivered. From there some were led to the laundry room, others were placed in rooms where they sat under supervision as they worked on their needle projects. Others were taken to the treatment rooms on a lower level. I was placed in front of the resident physician who inspected me thoroughly, asking questions, taking measurements, checking my health before some form of decision was made. So was the routine for the next month, in and out, observation, screams, cries and misbehaviour was dealt with severely. It became a frequent occurrence to find myself restrained to my bed, lashing out the nurses who persisted in probing at me to speak, another patient who came that too close. Some began avoiding me, stepping to the side as I walked by and I somehow revelled in the feeling, the power that I had never had, had been granted to me. I was left alone to wallow and mourn the loss of Jacob.  
Yet one morning the routine was disrupted. New arrivals, more women led in and shown to their cells and yet among them was a creature of such unusual beauty unlike anything that I had ever seen. Pale in complexion with a contrasting rope of obsidian locks that sat over her shoulder, her eyes took in everything and everyone around her, scrutinising and the same agitation that I felt seemed to resonate in them. Her posture tall, straight and yet despite the confidence and the apparent breeding, there was an inherent sadness. Then she was gone. Out of my sight and a disappointment came over me, before you could even investigate she had been taken from me. Once again the “mercy” that was prevalent in the world had failed and bypassed me. For the remainder of the day I was supervised in the needlework room, sitting by the window and stitching with difficulty a flower design. It was not something that I had had the luxury of indulging in, I had been sent to work, my hands were rough, my body knew hardship. By the end of the day my fingers were pricked in several places, my mind wondering back to the creature I had seen that morning and wondering where they could have taken her.  
“Move. The dinner bell has been ringing for ten minutes now”  
The same orderly who had shown me to my cell, stood in the doorway of the needle room where I remained seated as I stared out the window.  
“I’m not hungry”  
“You must eat”  
One thing that I quickly learnt was that there was little choice given in the asylum. All but dragged by the collar of my dress, I was placed at the table in front of an already half eaten bowl of left over porridge from that morning. But I had no appetite and happily handed the bowl over to the others. After the revolting tea had been issued, finally we were escorted back to our cells where I found one of the nurses stood waiting.  
“You are to share your cell”  
Dread and frustration filled my small being. That cell was mine and I did not wish to share-  
“This is Lucille Sharpe, she will be your cell mate”  
It was her, the girl from that morning. She sat stoically on the cot bed that against the right hand wall and matched my own, her hands were elegantly folded in her lap as she stared at me with those alert eyes, back straight.  
“This is Melinda Barker; she’s not much younger than you. Settle down and into bed”  
The door was shut and bolted and it was just us, me and her, Lucille. Neither of us spoke, merely looked at one another as I walked round and sat on my own bed opposite her. Perhaps there was really mercy in the world after all.


	2. Chapter 2

She didn’t say a lot, Lucille. For the first night she sat up the entirety of the night, rather eerie really to wake up and through the darkness of the room to see her shape leaning against the wall unmoving in its straight back pose. Come morning however, she was up and dressed and left the cell before me, walking down the hallways with her hands clasped together and resting against her front as she did so. In the dining room, she sat on her own, sipping the tea but barely eating before she was escorted and taken to one of the embroidery rooms. Throughout the day she would be visited and taken to another floor, the treatment rooms I would later find out when my own treatment began. It was hardly treatment, more like some form of torture. A concoction of newly found drugs that kept patients subdued, if a little too much of one was added then the patient was rendered in a form of paralysis until it wore off. It was from that hallway that most of the screams originated from. Patients who were on the higher end of the institution and would do harm to the rest of us. Whilst not a lot of that seemed to affect Lucille, the screaming was what seemed to get to her the most. Usually placed on the same kinds of activities on the same days, I would see her hands scrunch in the sheets that we were cleaning or her knuckles whiten as she held the embroidery circle tightly. Her whole body seemed to tense before she either left the room or some unsuspecting attendant found her screaming in their face, demanding that the horrid creature that was causing such a racket was silenced. It was a sight to behold, her stoic and almost empty features suddenly filled with a hot rage. She was taken from the room in those instances, returning to the cell many hours later and considerably less coherent than she had left.   
“You don’t talk” she stated to me one day as we were stood opposite one another in the hot cleaning room, arms draped with bed sheets, some in a rather questionable state.  
“Are you unable to or merely simple?”   
Though we barely knew each other at that point, despite sharing a cell, her words stung a little. In many circles I was considered as simple, uneducated and rather lowly in every possible sense. She came from breeding that was obvious, despite the environment that we shared; she in every sense was of a higher class. But there were elements to her that even I knew would be frowned upon by those in her social circle. For one, how a rather tight smirk would pull at her lips when she saw that my cheeks were once again reddened from her words and the humiliation that she had inflicted.  
“Clearly you’re not that simple if you can comprehend what I’m saying to you” dropping the sheets back into the wash pot with a slap against the water’s surface, she glanced at me as I stood watching her hands. Another indicator that she was not entirely complying to her classes expectations, her hands that would have otherwise been unmarred and untainted with work bore some of the same calluses as my own did. Small scars that flecked her skin, a few lying on the tops of her hands, one lining on her lip and cheek and a canvas of larger ones that striped her back and shoulders. She didn’t like for anyone to see those, but I had seen them clearly one morning as she had stood dressing thinking me asleep.  
“This is more your work-“  
“And yours”  
I hadn’t meant to say anything, it just...it just happened. At that moment I had been sharing my cell with her for a month and she had done nothing but criticise and provoke me. For days I had felt the anger rising in me but always ignored it, pursuing other matters and distracting myself so to not end up in the ice bath again. A simple yet painful experience of being placed in a large copper bath basin filled with ice and water, a simple sheet placed over the top with only enough room for your head to appear out of it. The rest of you submerged, becoming numb and frozen until the physicians decided it was enough.  
“What-“  
“Your hands. Just like mine”  
It wasn’t meant to be something that would aggravate her, but clearly I had underestimated her. My head was beneath the surface of the water, the soap shavings aggravating my eyes, her hand tangled in the back of my hair pulling and pushing as she held me there. I was sure that I would drown, that it would be the end and they would simply find me hanging over the side. But my hair was released and my head brought back to the surface, lungs burning as I took in breathes, feeling the pressure releasing having been holding my breath. But there were no attendants around or nurses who were still dealing with another patient who had tried to beat someone with a wooden panel. No, Lucille had been the one who brought me back up and was now holding my face, pushing my hair back from my face as I spluttered and expelled what water had managed to get into my mouth.  
“You look better when you’re clean”  
Even after working in the heat and the same hot water as I had, her hands remained chilled as they rubbed over my face and smoothing my hair back from my face. It was gentle, soft, almost motherly as she looked down at me before she leant forward and placed her lips on my forehead. I had no clue on how I should react, one moment she had been holding me under water with the clear intention to hurt me in some way, now she was cradling my face and kissing my head like my own mother had done.   
“What’s going on here?”  
“She fell, had a little accident but everything is all right now, I’ve got her”  
It took no time at all for me to realise what she meant by that. I had known from the moment I saw her that no matter what I may do, she would have me in some way or another. From that day on she changed, not in her outwards appearance or the way that she spoke or walked around silently. But with me. I would see her watching me from across rooms, following me but never too far that it was obvious, standing between myself and some of the others that she never held in any regard. It was odd to me, yet I welcomed it. No one had shown such an interest since my mother and whilst she was only a few mere years older than I, she became a mother like presence. At night she would insist I bathe, cleaning my hair with the small amount of soap that we could collect, comb my hair and then braid it before tucking me in at bed. I assumed from her actions that she had siblings, younger than her, that she’d cared for them just as I had for my own siblings when I had been with them.  
“I have ten brothers and sisters”  
Her nose had wrinkled at that, a hardened look to her eyes as we stood polishing the spoons that had been laid out on the table.   
“Not all of them are alive-“  
“Well of course not. How can that many of them survive”  
She was as odd to me as I was to her. To say such a thing was harsh, but she couldn’t see that. In her eyes it was the honest truth and nothing else.  
“What about you?”  
Her hands stilled in polishing, her eyes clouding over in a way that I had seen happen many times throughout the day. Yet a tug on her lips, a shallow sigh before she continued.  
“I have a younger brother”  
“I thought so”  
“You did not”  
“I did. You tuck me in, like I did with my brother-“  
“He’s not like your brother, he’s mine and no one else can have him”  
The spoon dented the table with the force that she slammed it down, storming to the sink and leaving me to finish the rest. Perhaps it should have been obvious to me then that there was something other than sibling love, yet I felt that I understood her. I was protective over Jacob, I always had been and made sure I cared for him the best I could. Now he was with a relative in Lancaster. It gave me comfort to know that my father’s new wife wouldn’t have him. I tried to ask Lucille where her brother had gone, who had him. What his name was, where were her parents, where did she live, why was she here? She never answered me, simply ignored me or pretended she hadn’t heard me or pushed her way past me. But each visit day that came about, though not often, like me she would remain in our cell or simply walk past the long auditorium and watch as patients walked with their relatives. Husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers walking alongside their family member that we knew far different than they did. Some would even stay and watch the small skits that the patients would put on, performing on the small stage at the end of the auditorium and using what little props we had. They were never any good but the visitors were kind enough to applaud the efforts.  
“They’re all liars”  
“Who are?”  
“They are” she would nod to the visitors as they would wish their relatives goodbye as they were escorted out, her eyes hard as they stared through the glass door panels.  
“How?”  
“They say they love them that they miss them and yet they leave them here, put them in here. That is their love, that’s what love does-“  
“I-“  
“You don’t understand”  
I suppose I didn’t. I watched as closely as she did and whilst she resented, a part of me longed for it. My own family had no care as to where I was, my grandparents dead long ago, the only that cared for me was my mother and she too was dead. My siblings scattered and my father...well even if he had been alive, he would have left me here. But those that came and visited smiled, laughed and even embraced their family members. I struggled to see what Lucille saw but sometimes wondered if she was right...if that was what had happened to her.  
It was the same at Christmas. When the green of the trees and grass had faded and the land had become sparse, the days colder and darker and definitely shorter. When a tree was placed in the corner of the auditorium and decorated, a new fad brought from another country by a royal so I was told, that I realised Lucille loathed the visitors even more. Glaring at them as they were escorted in and greeted their relatives, letters distributed to other patients who would sit and read them and sigh with the longing for home. What she loathed the most was seeing patients, some of which had been placed in isolation that same week, dressed and taken home. They, who could barely hold a conversation mere days ago were allowed home and didn’t come back. She flew into a rage, smashing the plates that held large gluttonous puddings on them until she was carried away by an orderly. I slept alone that night and the night after that until she was finally returned to me, her silent facade raised once more. I didn’t need to ask where they had taken her; the bruises and red marks on her wrists were explanation enough. Violence was not tolerated and when the usual procedures failed, restraints were the only way forward. Sometimes it was restraints to the bed, other times it was an entire jacket that wrapped your arms around your back as you were placed into a room that didn’t have tiles but rather large squares of padded material. She hated those, perhaps even feared them. I knew it and eventually the physicians and nurses knew it. Whenever she was unmanageable, that was their resort. The mere sound of the jangling buckles was enough to send her into a catatonic state where she would sink to the floor and hold her knees to her chest and mutter under her breath. Her screams could be heard from the floor below as they wrestled her into the jacket. They were the worst screams of all because you see, Lucille simply did not scream. She hated screaming, she hated the noise and the people that did scream. To hear her own was shocking. In the end she stopped screaming, she was silent but the fear in her eyes was louder than any scream she could muster. 

I myself was subject to the jacket and restraints, the room as well. When the anger rose and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from lashing out, whether that be at others or myself, that was when they would place me in some form of restraints. Lucille was there when it happened on one occurrence. By this time two years had passed since our incarceration. Lucille had turned fifteen and I was twelve. We had learned parts of one another’s lives and became known around the asylum, people watched us and the nurses were wary of us being alone together for extended periods of time. On the morning of this particular incident, we had been separated in our duties. A girl, older than myself and rather beautiful had insisted that I sit beside her whilst she brushed my hair and treated me like a doll. Already aggravated at the probing examination that the physician had made me endure that morning, I was in no mood for being touched and pestered. But she simply would not take no as an answer. She had been admitted for hysteria I later found, rather normal for most of the time but lashing out at random intervals. By the time the nurses found us, we were rolling round on the floor, she gripping my hair and trying to pry me off her as I bit into the flesh of her arm until blood speckled the surface. Lucille watched as two of the three nurses pulled me off the girl, the third pulling the now sobbing annoyance into her arms.  
“It wasn’t her fault, she would not leave her alone-“  
“This is nothing to do with you, girl-“  
“I was here; I saw it all”  
Argue as she might on my behalf, the nurses would hear none of it. They saw me biting the girl and that was all the evidence that they needed. For the rest of the day I sat in the stale, padded room in the jacket as I stared at the walls and saw the marks where the previous occupier had tried in vain to throw themselves at it and get out. Fools. All of them fools. For two years they had been the people that I saw day in, day out with the same routine and no closer to knowing what had become of my siblings or to leaving. It was unfair, cruel and once again I was sure that there really was no mercy in the world. Tears lined my cheeks as they finally released me and allowed me to return to my cell with a dose of opium to ensure that I remained subdued for the night. Lucille was already asleep as I settled down under the itching blankets and found that the tears would not stop. So frustrated and the hollowness that I had felt growing since a child becoming all the more pronounced in that moment I wanted to do nothing more than sob into the pillow. But Lucille hated the sound of crying almost as much as she did screaming. Biting my lip and eventually the pillow as I buried my face, I willed myself to stop so as to not displease her. I couldn’t bare it if she was angered with me because despite all that she did to me, the things that she sometimes spat at me she was the one thing that held my sanity intact. How it was possible I do not know, yet she was. Each monotonous morning I woke to her face, to her voice and direction and it gave me hope. I suppose there was a sense of fear that she would be taken from me, just as all others that I had dared to care for.  
“There, there. Why the tears?”  
Through the darkness of the cell, I felt her cool hands lift me from the pillow and turn me into her chest, her arms wrapped round me as one of her hands stroked my hair.  
“Where has this come from?”  
Try as I might I could not answer her. My mouth felt as if it had been sealed, glued shut as I leant further into the coolness of her exposed skin where the night dress sat along her collarbone. She had no smell, it was as neutral as her expression could be and yet it brought such comfort because it was distinctly hers. I held onto her, my hands wrapping in the cotton of her nightdress as my tears pooled and dampened the material.   
“Did they do something to you?”  
“Nothing more than usual”  
“They will all pay one day, I am sure of that”  
“You can’t say that”  
Lifting my head from her chest, I saw the outline of her features and even in the darkness the sparkle of her eyes was prominent. In the past two years alone she had become refined, her face changing from a young youth that was heading for older years. I wondered how I must compare to her mature beauty. A rag compared to her shine, I was under no illusion as to the difference there was but it hurt no less when I allowed my mind to fully consider it. Perhaps...I suppose...as I reason with myself now it must have been because of the feelings that were lingering within me. Deep beneath the comparison, beneath the sadness and anger, the confusion there was something else. A longing for her, a need for her, a want for her. Such forbidden desires, yet in my young age it did not feel forbidden or in any sense as if it were wrong. It was innocent; it was appreciation that despite the differences she cared for me in her own warped sense and gave her own sense of limited affection that I lapped up. Yet I wanted more.  
“What is it?” she whispered, her breath still smelt of the peppermints we had stolen from the kitchens that afternoon. They had tasted unlike anything I had ever had before, delicious and peppery but sweet towards the end. I wondered what it must taste like on her lips, on her tongue if her breath still carried the sweetness. It was only curiosity, it was only a thought. But I couldn’t stop it. My innocent lips pressed against her own and felt the chapped skin, tasted the lingering peppermint and wanted to have more. She remained still, letting it linger for a moment before her hands were round my throat and pinning me to the bed. I could barely breathe, my hands clawed at her tight hands and pushed, legs trying to pry her off me as her breath washed over my face. She was impossibly strong, more so than she should have been and the incident in the wash room resurfaced in my mind but this time round I was sure I would not survive. I had overstepped and I welcomed her to end it. I had nothing left and without her approval there truly felt as if there was nothing. But once more her hands were removed. My lungs filled with air and my hands fell to my sides as I searched the darkness for where she had gone before my mouth was covered with her own. Her body held me against the thin mattress, hands pinning my wrists either side of my head as the kiss deepened for a moment and then she was gone. Distantly I heard the springs of her own bed shift as she lay down, but my mind was in a whirl. My tongue darted out from between my lips and licked away the taste of her lips as the flurry of sensations and conflicting emotions continued playing in my mind even as I stated to drift asleep.   
“Lucille-“  
“Sleep”  
She said nothing more and neither did I, finally giving in for my bodies need for sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

“Have you finished your writing for the day?”  
“Of course”  
“Really?”  
“Lucille- Lucille stop-“  
“If you have done nothing wrong then there is nothing to hide is there?”  
I relinquished the scrap of paper begrudgingly and saw her inspecting eyes reading over the lines that I had been scrawling since early that morning.   
“Satisfied?”  
“Amusing”  
She read it as if there was nothing unusual or spectacular, though to please Lucille in such a way took a great feat and my penmanship was far from that.   
“You must learn to control your hand better-“  
“That’s easy for you-“  
“Everything valuable is never easily obtained”  
I rolled my eyes at her sayings, for a fifteen year old she spoke as if she had lived for centuries.   
“I don’t see why I should do this, what good is it?”  
Sighing and snapping shut the book we had stolen from the library, Lucille took a seat and turned my face to look at her,   
“You don’t want to be like them out there, do you? Frightened, incapable-“  
“Lucille-“  
“I know what’s best for you Melinda, remember?”  
Her watery smile and the way she ran her thumb across my bottom lip was enough, each and every time to win me over.   
“Yes Lucille”  
“Good, now try again”  
Each morning was the same. Wake early, wash, dress and braid hair. Then she would sit down and give me my lines to practising writing whilst she would watch over my shoulder, pacing back and forth in the cramped cell room whilst reading whatever book it was that she had taken from the library. Once she was satisfied, she would have me sit and read a paragraph until the tell tale thud of the porters boots echoed down the hallway. The book would be hidden under the loose tile and we would stand ready for our release. We had been banned from working in the kitchen after an incident that entailed Lucille adding some of the rat poison she had found into the stew. No one had been seriously harmed...simply they had needed to rest in the medical ward for a while. She had been severely punished and as I was always the one at her side it was assumed I too must have been involved. Whilst she was confined for near a week, I spent that time clearing the piss pots out.  
“You two, outside you’ll be clearing the paths for our guests arrival”  
“Guest?”  
“They mean a man”  
“How do you know that?”  
“Why do you ask a lot of questions?”  
Scuttling to keep up with her long strides, I joined Lucille and the others that had been selected outside in the foggy morning.   
“All the leafs must be cleared and placed into piles, the groundsmen will deal with it later”  
The rough woollen gloves we were handed did little good, fingerless they were and the cold soon turned our digits pink. The hard wooden handle of the brooms and spades meant that blisters formed with ease. Yet we worked. The more we worked the warmer we stayed. Despite the layers of skirts they were thin cotton and did little to shield the wind that hurried along the lawns.  
“Why does a guest care about the leafs?”  
“They don’t”  
“Then why are we doing this?”  
“How about you pipe down and get on wi’ it-“  
“I wasn’t talking to you-“  
“Naw you’re just talking to that psycho-“  
“She’s not psycho-“  
“Leave it Melinda-“  
“But Lucille-“  
“I said leave it-“  
“Yeah Melinda, leave it”  
Penny was a dreadful girl who was missing most of her teeth and her gums were beginning to rot. Her head had been shaved when she had first entered the asylum and that was how she had kept it. A larger girl, she wore no corset or belts, she wore a man’s shirt and patched up trousers. She was a bully who felt it was her right to oversee the rest of us as she claimed to have been there the longest; thought I was almost sure she was no older than Lucille. I suppose it was the throaty, hissing laugh that made me raise my spade to her, thankfully for her Lucille had other ideas.   
“What are you doing-“  
“I could ask you the same question”  
“She was mocking you-“  
“How many times have I told you?””  
“It’s not the same- she was mocking me too-“  
“You react too quickly, there are other ways to retaliate-“  
“Lucille-“  
“Enough”  
She pushed me back against the shed wall, having dragged me away whilst Penny had gone to run and tell the supervising nurse. This shed was where we often ran and hid when we were permitted outside.   
“You need to learn to control your temper-“  
“Why should I? You don’t!”  
The slap was sharp and instantly began to smart against the cold morning air. Yet, as with nearly all of our heated encounters it results in her embracing me tenderly and placing an equally tender kiss on my lips.   
“One day you are going to get me into trouble even I can’t resolve” she whispered as her hands twirled the ends of my hair,   
“If you never leave me then you won’t have to worry about it, you can keep me in line”  
Her eyes lifted and searched my own as I leant my head back against the wooden planks,   
“Lucille-“  
“Where are they?”  
“Hurry”  
We ran round the grounds until finally the nurse was simply too tired to pursue us any further. Whilst our reprimanding was not as severe as it could have been, remaining outside in the bitter cold until our hands were numb and our noses pink seemed bad enough.  
“How much longer-“  
“Until they say stop”  
“But-“  
“Stand straight and don’t move”  
The nurse smacked the leaves from my hand and made me stand straight, Lucille already complying with the instructions, her gaze following the large carriage that was rushing down the path that we had spent the entire morning clearing.   
“Whose that-“  
“Hold your tongue”  
The nurse nudged me with a sharp elbow to my back, Lucille shooting me a warning glance as we both turned our attentions back to the now stilled coach. The horses breath fogged in the coldness along with the steam from their heated, worked bodies. The footman jumped down, briskly walking to the door and opening it where a long leg emerged and began their descent down to the cleared path.  
“Doctor Blackwell, an honour sir”  
The residing doctor, Mr Ashdon, stepped outside with the matron and his team of doctors to greet the new arrival who was looking at the grounds in which his latest residence was set. It was clear that he thought them beneath him and his usual rank. Yet, something changed, something that in my later years I would come to recognise and fully understand, as his eyes fell on us and more specifically Lucille.   
It was expected that a new doctor would try and inflict his wishes and way of doing things on the asylum, it was their way of asserting their authority and showing that they were indeed the ones in control. It was obvious with Blackwell, within the week the asylum had changed in its every day function and procedures. Whilst it had not been lax in any form, it became suffocating. The higher levels where the dangerous patients roamed were no longer opened. They remained in their rooms, ushered to receive their treatment and meals before being returned. That didn’t affect us, but the whispers bled down to our floor where soon enough the implications were placed on our lives.   
“I don’t see why”  
“You wouldn’t.”  
“Well then” I skipped back from the door, seeing Lucille sat at the small desk and sliding my feet along the floor until I was behind her.  
“Then explain it to me”  
Whilst she would never admit it, kisses on the side of her neck were always a way to bring Lucille round. In the years that I had known her, totalling 6 at that moment in time, there were a few small details that I had collected and used to my advantage.   
“Melinda-“  
“Lucille?”  
Smirking, I perched on the edge of the desk and looked down at her with a sly smirk on my face whilst she looked positively stern. By that point she was 18, a matured beauty with a curve to her waist and a fullness in her chest, her features refined and strong but with a gentleness to her scarred skin that I so enjoyed touching when she permitted me.  
“You are being rather troublesome-“  
“I do not see how-“  
“Do not insult my intelligence, I know the incident that occurred in the bathing room”  
She seemed to know everything that happened, whether it was regarding me or even someone on an entirely different floor. She had a way of gathering what information she needed.   
“Oh Lucille, is that why you’re acting like this-“  
“On the contrary, if that is how you wish to behave-“  
“She was staring at me, like she was going to...well you can imagine, what else was I meant to do?”  
“How many times must I tell you? There are more ways than simply lashing out-“  
“And how many times must I tell you, when you stop then I will”  
It was brave, perhaps even daring in some way, but Lucille knew me well enough to not give in to the teasing.   
“In that case-“  
“Lucille just tell me what you heard”  
A choice between peace and quiet and giving me what I wanted was an easy choice for her.   
“Blackwell is enforcing practises that they have in the asylums in London, he feels that they will reap results as opposed to the chosen method-“  
“Keeping people locked inside their rooms-“  
“It is far more than that, something far sinister”  
I missed it at that moment, perhaps not looking for it or wanting to see it yet Lucille knew. There was a darkness to her eyes, as if she knew. I suppose that’s why it didn’t surprise her when the new practises reached our floor. Certain rooms were closed, the patients kept inside, others that were never seen again and the screams and cries that had once been silenced continued on into the night. Like a prison, so I later learned, only darker and filled with terror. In the mornings, led form our rooms and kept separately as we were placed in our seats at the table and given rationed portions. Eyes always kept on our actions, monitored and led away if something was seen that was not liked. Lucille and I were kept apart, sitting us on opposite sides of the table and even further apart, she at one end and me at the other.   
“Eyes down”  
The slaps were sharp and the newly trained wards and nurses seemed to delight in their new found power and allowance in treatment. Once breakfast was complete then we were led away back to our rooms once again. There, medication was administered, some led to the treatment rooms and not returning till later that night.  
“Eyes up Mel” Lucille whispered, knocking me in the sides to bring my attention back up. Sure enough, Doctor Blackwell was making his morning rounds.  
“Well, well. How are we this morning?”  
“Ate little-“  
“Indeed-“  
“Medication refused-“  
“Really?”  
“Yes Doctor Blackwell-“  
“Well” his blackened eyes lifted from the file that he had been reading, gazing over us both as they landed on Lucille, her eyes lowered ever so slightly.  
“What reason?”  
She did not speak.  
“I know you are not mute girl”  
Still she did not speak. I wished I could lean over and urge her to say something and save herself, but she was stubborn, always so stubborn.  
“Speak girl”  
The ward struck Lucille, her skin blemishing under the blow. Her hands began to curl into fists and I felt my heart racing, my body shivering until I found myself on top of Doctor Blackwell. Hitting his face again and again, feeling the crack of his bones under my fists and the grappling hands that were wrapped round my middle and pulling me off.   
“STOP! GET SOME HELP!”  
The nurse grappled with me, her nails scratching my face as she battled with me before finding herself pushed over, Doctor Blackwell fighting back until finally I was lifted and pulled from him.  
“RUN!”  
Lucille took my arm, other patients now leaning out of line from where they had been inspected and watching as both me and Lucille ran down the corridor. Her hand tightened as she pulled me, my feet tripping over themselves as I followed her blindly. There were yells from behind us, ordering us to stop but we kept running. Lucille seemed to know where we were going, she was the one that would always lead me, take me away from the trouble.  
“Luc-“  
Her hand placed over my mouth to keep me quiet, her eyes sharp and focused on the door that she had slammed shut mere moments before. The light beneath the door blocked out as several pairs of feet passed, searching for where we could have possibly hidden ourselves. She remained still, holding me there as if not trusting me- though I suppose I had given her reason to not at that moment.  
“Luci-“  
Like a mother chastising her child, she hissed at me, silencing me. Her eyes were filled with anger, I knew that I had disappointed her again, reacted when I should have remained silent like she wanted me to. When she was sure that they had passed, she opened the door and stepped out without looking back at me. So it continued for the next week. Not that it was possible, when they found us, Doctor Blackwell and the matron for our floor, we were separated. What happened to Lucille she wouldn’t say, all I know is that I was taken from my room, taken upstairs and subjected to some of the new “techniques” that Doctor Blackwell brought from London.   
Torture.  
That was what it was. Torture, not treatment. Skin pricked by thick metal syringes, skin pierced with metal blades, blood splattered, veins filled with a fluid that seemingly had no effect until you woke hours later aching and sore. Ice baths where no movement was permitted other than your head, strapped into a chair and shocked until you blacked out or your chin was covered in spittle from losing control over your tongue. Spun round until your vision and you vomited what little was sat in your stomach, little sleep permitted and in the morning cold porridge or nothing at all. Treatment they called it, it was punishment and a reminder of what would be done. I had never known pain like it, yet seeing Lucille when I was finally returned to my room seemed dull in comparison. It was not clear by her appearance what had happened, that she had been subjected to. She was sat on her bed, her hands folded in her lap and her gaze staring at the wall straight in front of her.  
“L-Luci-“ she didn’t look round, merely sat there in silence and refused to look at me. I thought that she was still angry at me, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if she was, but it was so much more and I saw it too late to try and save her.


	4. Chapter 4

I thought that perhaps it would only be a moment that she remained that way. Showing her disapproval at my inability to keep quiet or not cause trouble. But it continued, day after day until they bled into weeks, then months. She rarely spoke and what she did say was sharp, blunt and without looking at me and when she did look at me there was a hollow anger, darkness bubbling and restrained but breaking through in moments when I feared she would strike me so hard I would barely regain consciousness. Yet, among those dark moments she would slide herself into my bed and hold me, touch me and kiss the bruised skin that had been inflicted by my “treatment” or by her hand. Whispering her sorrow at what she had done so quiet I often wondered whether she had indeed said it. Turning in her arms and facing her, I would smooth her hair form her face and kiss her, reassuring her that all would be well in the morning. Nodding, she’d hold me tight and hum her lullaby, stroking my hair as she lifted my night dress and her chilled fingers danced against my heated opening. Such calloused fingers filled with dexterity and skill, she’d fill my mouth with the pillow to prevent me from rousing the night patrols, my moans and whimpers, pleadings for more silenced. My own fingers tracing her body and begging to touch and show her the affection I felt, lips searching to sear her skin as hers did to my own skin and each time I was rebuked.

Those moments, no matter how brief were a relief. The asylum, the institution as it was being called by the newly appointed staff became hell on earth. Dim and gloomy hallways became darkened and abysmal, the staff even more so. Watching each and every move and any misdirection was treated with the severest of hands. People removed from a room and it would be days before they were seen again, if at all. They were barely human or so it seemed, the way that they prowled and patrolled us like animals. The only moments of relief that I found were with Lucille, hidden away from prying eyes or the rare moments when it seemed her cold exterior had broken once more. When we would be stood cleaning in the kitchen or scrubbing the bed sheets and her fingers would entangle with mine beneath the water’s surface, a touch of affection. Yet it seemed that even her affection was to be taken from me.  
“Lucille Sharpe!”  
Her name rang throughout the silent breakfast room, her eyes slowly lifting from her untouched bowl to see that indeed she had heard correctly. There was a letter being held out for her. Taking it in her hand, I watched as she turned it round in her fingers for a moment before peeling the wax seal off and opening it. Her eyes scanned the page, taking in the words expertly unlike many of the others that sat around her before she gasped. Her eyes flooding with tears, so unlike her, so un-Lucille like.   
“Lucille-“  
“Thomas. My Thomas”  
Thomas?   
She stood from her seat, the nurses watching her as if worried that she was about to have some kind of hysterical moment and need to be restrained. Instead, she took the letter and went to the sink where she could read it away from prying eyes. I gave her that moment, another one of our arguments meant that morning meant I did not want to intrude on her further than I clearly already had. But all that morning, as we scrubbed the copper pans and the floor, I saw her reach into her pocket where she had placed the letter as if she was reassuring herself that it was still there and she hadn’t imagined it.   
“Who is he?”  
She looked round at me from where she had been scrubbing the floor of the hallway, her face flushed and strands of hair falling in her face as she brought herself back up and dropped the brush into the bucket.   
“Who?”  
“The letter”  
I saw her eyes darken for just a moment, her reddened hand protectively placed over her pocket once more.   
“What of it?”  
“Luci-“  
She took her bucket and walked away from me across the floor that she had just cleaned and I couldn’t help but follow her, always following her.   
“I just want to know- you looked so...so-“  
“He is my brother-“ she finally relinquished as she emptied the bucket into the sink, letting it hit against the side.   
“B-brother?”  
“Yes”  
Thomas, the secret brother that she had told me so little about and near enough denied his existence and yet at being questioned she had suddenly become defensive about him.   
“What did he say?”  
“That is none of your business”  
It was made clear that she would not be sharing much about him, yet it only made me suspicious to what it was she was hiding.   
“Well perhaps I will make it my business-“  
Lucille however was having none of it. My back hit the wall and the anger that rage within her eyes only betrayed just how important her brother was. Her hand was tight around my throat and I could feel the coarseness of her skin from scrubbing the floor and years of work.   
“What’s goin on ere”  
Caught. Lucille was pulled away from me, despite me trying to plead with them that she had done nothing, that it wasn’t what they thought. But it fell on deaf ears. As much as I struggled and tried to fight, they held me back and she was taken from me.   
“Dr Blackwell wants to see her-“  
“NO!”  
I heard her finally retaliate, yell and cause her own scene as she was taken away.  
“LUCILLE! LUCI-“  
The door to the isolation room was slammed in my face locked and they walked away and left me there with no indication of when they would be returning. The room had not been cleaned and the previous occupants had left their mark. It smelt like the chamber pots, the sheets were stained and the walls were smeared with things I didn’t even want to think about. I sat there and waited, the grip on my throat remained and I was sure that there would be bruises and I welcomed them, it was as if she was still there with me. All I could hear in my head was her screams and pleas to them to let her go. I knew then that when we were reunited that it would not be a sweet thing. 

I found her back in our cell, led facing the wall with the blankets over her.   
“Lucille?”  
I tried to rouse her, make her at least look round at me so I could see her face. But there was nothing. The blankets rose and fell, the room silent as I took a seat on my cot and sat watching and waiting for the moment she would acknowledge me, always hoping that she would and it would be different from the last time.   
“Lucille please...look at me”  
She grumbled, the blankets moving as her hand appeared and scaled up the wall like a creature emerging from its cave. It faltered on the bricks before she groaned again.  
“Lucille, Lucille what’s wrong?”  
Still she stirred, her hand trying to pull herself up or brace herself.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“She’s quite well, merely needs her rest”  
Unaware of how long he had been stood there, I turned to see Doctor Blackwell stood in the door way watching us both. His long white jacket covering the obsidian black suit beneath, polished shoes shining against the dim floor tiles as his hands held his papers.   
“I have been informed however that you are in need of an examination-“  
“No”  
Try as you might to be defiant, his gaze was enough to make the strongest of people shudder and shrink. Closing the papers, he looked up and round at me and took a step inside our cell, no care for the boundaries that he was disregarding.   
“I don’t think you are aware of the consequences you could be facing-“  
“Leave me alone”  
His smile made my stomach turn, the ends of his moustache turning upwards and all I could think of were the images from Sunday school when my mother would take me there; the ones of the demons and the devils.  
“I’m afraid, I cannot do that”  
His hand sat on my leg and his fingers began to trace up my thigh.  
“No! No leave me alone!”  
Thrashing and pushing his hand away whilst the still groaning Lucille was jerked beside me, Blackwell’s grin became broader.   
“You see, you are quite unwell-“  
“No- there’s nothing wrong- no”  
“In here!”   
Porters appeared, as if they had been waiting the entire time, part of his plot and plan. Their hands were rough and strong, holding my arms as I was dragged away from Lucille whose hand reached out for me as if to stop them. But it was futile. They dragged me down the hallway, Blackwell leading the way as I was taken from the residence floor and up the stairs.   
“In here”  
The room smelt of chemicals, strong enough that it near burnt my nose. He had changed it all, it was a room of terrors.  
“Now lie her down here and we shall begin”  
Lucille. Is this where he had brought her? Is this the room she muttered about in her nightmares? The porters placed me on the table, their hands holding me in place as my wrists were placed into the restraints before my ankles then followed.  
“Anything else Doctor Blackwell?”  
“No that’ll be all, if I need assistance then I will send for you”  
They left. They left the room, closed the door and I was left alone.   
“Now, this is something that I have practised in London on my patients there before my superiors decided that I needed to be sent here to continue my good work with people like you”  
My heart raced, in all the different treatments that I had received this was unlike the others. This was filled with an underlying danger and there was nothing that I could do to stop it. He removed the white jacket from his shoulders and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt before taking a glass vial from one of the cupboards. From one of the drawers I saw the glint of a metal syringe and watched as the bubbling liquid filled its container,   
“This is going to help you relax before we begin our examination-“  
“Stay away from me-“  
“I am doing this to help you”  
Fight as I might against the restraints, I didn’t move, held fast against the table as my arm was grabbed and the syringe began to descend.   
“Just stay still-“  
The burn in my legs as I tried to lift them, to push him away and leave and be with Lucille once more but the bite of the syringe ended all hope of that. It was near instant, the clouding of my mind and the heaviness in my limbs as they fell against the table.  
“Perfect”  
Blackwell’s voice was hazy, close and then far away yet he was stood right beside me. They had administered many things to me, some of them worse than others and yet this was the worst of all. All control had left my body.   
“Wh-wha-“  
“You do not need to speak” my mouth was shut forcefully, snapping my teeth together as his hands travelled down my legs again and lifted them where they were settled in what I would learn later as being stirrups. From that moment I can barely recall what happened, though I did not want to. The pain that I experienced is something I can barely comprehend and yet in the late night’s moments of clarity return to me and I know full well what was done to me. His hands pushing my skirts up until I was exposed to the sterile air, cold and brushing my inner most private parts and yet it continued; the warmth of his hands as they pressed against my thighs and made no attempt to stop as they neared my entrance and circled, teasing and torturing further until they entered me. My body arched, tried to move away and cry out but unable as if in a child’s body who had not yet learned how to use their limbs. Further and further he pushed, his own noises echoing in my mind as I whimpered and moaned like an injured animal. Tears spilled from my eyes as I felt the pain, dull and aching yet sure enough pain that was joined by a spark of unwanted pleasure.  
“St-Stop-“  
My mouth was stuffed with cotton, silencing me. His ragged breathing filled the room, groaning until he was satisfied and the tightness in my body broke and I fell back against the bed.   
“An excellent result”  
My body was dragged from the table and I remember little else as I was dropped onto my bed with little care or concern, the door slammed shut as we were finally left alone and my body allowed me to fall unconscious and give me a moments peace.   
“Such a poor child,”  
Shuddering at the hand that stroked my cheek, I tried to force myself back to sleep and ignore it, to ignore the aching in my stomach and between my legs.   
“They touched my child, what are we to do”  
But the hand did not belong to Blackwell, it did not belong to any man but Lucille, my Lucille.  
“I know you’re awake”  
Turning into her hand, allowing my eyes to open just to prove that it was indeed her and that she looked as unwell as I. Her skin was cold and her hair hung limply round her face, a bruise forming round her eye.   
“H-he did this to you-“  
“Look what they did to you”  
She wasn’t listening, her eyes glazed as yet another letter sat in her free hand as the other stroked my cheek still, pushing my hair back from my face.  
“Did this happen to yo-“  
She silenced my questions, leaning down and kissing me, pressing her body against mine as she pulled the blankets round us both, keeping what warmth there was between us.  
“Lu-Lucille-“  
“Shh, I’ll take care of you”  
I tried to resist, to speak to her instead and yet the more she kissed me the more I craved for her and for once it seemed she was willing and as wanting as I was.   
“Stay quiet”  
Before I could even give my response she had descended beneath the blankets, it made me shiver and grip the sheets, a need to have her away, to have her nowhere near me and to curl up and sleep again.   
“Let me make you feel better, let me help”  
Tears fell into my hair once more as I felt the ache and the sickness in my stomach churn, yet her touches and kisses eased my legs open until I felt her lips on my skin, gentle, tender and unlike any way that she had been before.   
“Mel, my Mel open for me”  
My final resolve left me at hearing my name fall from her lips, feeling her fingers gently open me as her tongue traced my entrance and caused my breath to catch in my throat. It was different to her touches, to her fingers.  
“Lucille- Lucille I-“  
My hands found her hair, feeling the usually soft strands as her mouth continued to work me in such a skilled way until I felt the same tightening in my stomach and flurry as my body found its release, panting as my body relaxed back into the pillow. Lucille appeared from beneath the blankets, her chin glistening with the wetness that I felt pooling between my thighs.   
“Lu-“  
“No more”  
Silencing me once more, she led beside me and wrapped her arm round me and brought me into her chest as she stroked my hair. Her arms stayed round me as she hummed her lullaby and kissed my forehead as a mother comforting her child until we both fell asleep and away from the world unaware that beyond the door our secret moment had been witnessed by the worst demon of all.


End file.
